The Cecil Whig., 1887-05-14
TO BE CONTINUED. !


Women"
Professor Romaues made the Mental
Differences Between Men and Women"
the topic of a lecture recently delivered
at the Royal Institution. The views his
remarks disclosed are those which must.
we fancy be entertained by every we'll
informed and unprejudlced observer.
Mental differences do exist between meu
and women, which are not simply the
differences between individuals of the two
sexes but of a nature to show that they
depend upon the diverse characteristics
and purposes of the two classes of organic
development. And these differences
when they come to be studied closely,
Will be found to partake very much of the
nature indicated by Professor Romanes
when he hiuted that women are gifted
with more acute and facile power of
acquisition than men, the difference be-
ing about 81 OF. The average male ence-
phalon has oeen said to weigh 49, OF
while the female average weight has beeD
put at 4 t OF. There are, however, very
great variations. OF 27S male and 1871
female brains, the smallest male weighed
81 oz., while the largest weighed 60 oZ.
The male eucephalon IN 10 cases out of
the 21S ranged from As OF. to % OF. The
ltllIilC bIhlH vi GuS IDIiI lJt
weighed 81 oz. aud the largest 56 o.
that is, 8 OF. less than the weight of the
largest male brain. Of 125 brains selected
from the l91 female brains, the weight
ranged from Al OF. to IL or. So that we
may say tho average male encephaIon
weighs from 46 OF to 53 o., while the
female weighs frou Al OK. to II OF. Thus,
speaking broadly, it is correct to affirm
that the male brain is heavier than the
female, and those who, perhaps too hast
lily, measure the mind by the absolute
brain. weight, infer that in it's totality
the mind of man must be greater than
the mind of woman. This, however, leads
US TO make a remark which we do not
remember to have encountered-namely
that as there is very little difference be-
tween the propOrtionate weight of the
cerebellum to the cerebrum in the two
sexes, the preparation being as l to S 4 :
in the male ana as TO 81 in the female,
there scarcely seems ground to infer from
the existence of a smaller brain in woman
than in man that she is necessarily infe-
rior in proportional mental powers, be-
cause it cannot be forgotten that woman
has on the average a much smaller organ
ism than man. 1t has not, so far as we
are aware, been proved, or even seriously
contended, that small man with a pro-
portionately full-sized though actually
small brain is not intellectually as good
as larger man with brain only proper
tionately greater in size. We know that
it has been the practice to weigh brains
without reference to the total weight of
the bodies with which they were asso-
ciated, but this has always struck us as
an unfair proceeding. 1t would, we be-
lieve, have been fonnd to explain most of
the discrepancies between actual mind
power and brain weight which have done
violence to the prcjudiccs of those who
weighed the understanding solely By the
brain to take into consideration the
weight of the whole body. Iu short, We
venture to urge that it IS not, in our pres
ent state of knowledge at least, justif-
able proceeding to measure the mind by
the brain without taking into account
the organism of which the brain forms
part. 1t may we'll be that small brain
in small body equally effective as a
mind organ as a larger brain in a larger
body; and it follows that too much i'm
portance may be attached to the fact that
the average weight of the female brain is
less than the average weight of the male
brain, because the average weight of the
female body as the whole, including the
brain, is less than that of the male organ
ism, and it has not yet beeu shown that
the female is smaller Proportj0na0Uy
than the male. We think "the mental dir-
ferences between men'and women are
rather differences of kind than of degree,
and this will accord with the infereuces
of Prof. Romanes, though it may not so
closely accord with the facts by which he
seeks to support them. There are great
differences in mental power and capacity
between men aud women, and we believe
they are of nature to render imprasti-
cable the levelling views snd purposes of
the promoters of uniformity, but it is not
upon such coarse data as those of relative
weight that the differentiation of mental
power as exhibited by the two sexes can
be satisfactorily established or eluci-
dated LoHd0R LdHc6t.